


Here's To You

by mikedaws0n



Category: Mouse Guard, Six Feats Under
Genre: Death, Gen, Short One Shot, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-05
Updated: 2018-12-05
Packaged: 2019-09-12 07:46:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16868953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mikedaws0n/pseuds/mikedaws0n
Summary: A patrol of the guard's finest encounter a detour of grave importance while on a mission.





	Here's To You

**Author's Note:**

> This is a spoiler for the Six Feats Under Mouse Guard campaign! Please do not read unless you have finished listening to the Fall 1149 episodes.

It was a cold morning, as late falls were. The first snow of the year had already begun. Saxon, Kenzie, Rand, and Taryn, were plodding their way north. Reports of a predator being spotted north of Pebblebrook had led them here to ward it off or slay it before winter began and conditions became too harsh to make such a thing near-impossible.  
Winter coming also meant annual reports, and Kenzie was formulating his in his head out of boredom. Saxon was thinking about the predator, considering what it may be, perhaps fishers that were coming a little too far inland. Reports had been quite sketchy. Rand was thinking of how close they were to the entrance of Darkheather, and of the rumors of weasels trying to recruit mice, which frankly sounded like suicide.

It was in this moment, when these examples of the guard’s finest were lost in thought, that Taryn noticed an odd lump in the snow, and had decided to poke at it. To her horror, she realized whatever this was was something soft, fleshy, and mouse-sized.

“Hey! There’s something over here!” she shouted, a bit of waver in her voice.

The three mice heeded her call, brushed away the snow, and gave it a closer look.  
It was the dead body of a mouse, white as the snow it was half-buried in, dressed in odd, colorful, regalia. The mouse was missing a leg, a pegleg in its place, of shoddy quality and incorrect length. He was also missing an arm, the remaining stump tied up with care. Death, however, did not seem to be from the elements, but being run through with a blade. On top of him was a book, marked with a symbol for heather.

Horror was sinking in the mice’s hearts. Saxon’s in particular was leaning towards anger. Rand picked up the book and began to look through it. Kenzie inspected the vestments a bit further.

“This seems to be the traditional garb of a tunnel lord.” said Kenzie. “But...why would he be dressed in them, and in fact, who is this to begin with?”  
“That’s Marx.” Taryn pointed out, terrified. “He, he was in that patrol we traveled with last spring.”

Saxon began to remember. He had mostly been focused on his rivalry with the patrol leader, Francisca, and their argument of whether their weapon of choice was superior. That seemed uncomfortably meaningless at the moment. The whitefur had been very kind, dedicated to the safety and comfort of the mice he had traveled with, ensuring the settlement would not be deterred by beast or by the greedy merchants seeking to danger the settler’s food supply in the name of profit. When they had reached the hollow Wildseed would be located, he had spent his downtime with the rest of the laborers, working hard on constructing the buildings of the new settlement. _Good cook, too_ , he mused.

Rand, as he looked through the book, began to understand what had been found. It was a logbook, full of recordings of the mice that had arrived in Darkheather over the fall. He looked back down at the body. Would this be the fate of all those mice who had simply been looking for a new beginning?

Taryn was thinking of her friend Tander, and hoped wherever he was at the moment, it was far away from them, and more importantly, far away from Darkheather. She also began to fear for her own safety

Kenzie had heard word at some point of a patrol this season acting as “diplomats” to the weasels, with whom tensions had been rising further and further, The rumors of the current Overlord, Rampaul the White, had made clear how much of a monster they were. This was surely their doing. He decided upon a course of action.

“Rand, Taryn, you two shall deliver the cadaver and his book back to Lockhaven. Find some leaves to wrap him up in, and leave the vestments behind. Be wary of transporting this body. We don’t need mice seeing this sort of thing right now. Saxon and I will continue to search for the predator.”  
“Are you sure?” asked Rand, uncertain, “You’ll be cutting your numbers in half.”  
“Saxon and I have handled plenty of beasts in our time together. This one will be no different.” Kenzie replied. “In fact I think you’ve taken on a far more important mission just now.”

Rand and Taryn began to gather materials that would make the transportation easier and more secrete, at least until they could reach Pebblebrook’s coroner. Meanwhile Saxon and Kenzie continued north, preparing for the worst, in more ways than one.

_1149 is going to be an interesting year_ , Kenzie thought to himself.

* * *

 

_“If it had not been for these things, I might have lived out my life talking at street corners to scorning men. I might have died, unmarked, unknown, a failure. Now we are not a failure. This is our career and our triumph. Never in our full life we could have hoped to do such work for tolerance, for justice, for man's understanding of man as we now do by accident. Our words—our lives—our pains—nothing! The taking of our lives—lives of a good shoemaker and a poor fish peddler—all! That last moment belongs to us—that agony is our triumph.”_  
_Bartolomeo Vanzetti, anarchist activist, three months before his execution. (taken from Wikipedia)_


End file.
